F-104 Starfighter

[Mossie]

Thanks Moritz, excellent link!

[Jschmus]

And here I was, led to believe that the F-104 didn't have any serious weapon-toting potential.  That link seems to blow that idea out of the water.

[jcf]

And here I was, led to believe that the F-104 didn't have any serious weapon-toting potential.  That link seems to blow that idea out of the water.

Not surprising, as getting close to half a century on the F-104 is still surrounded by a lot of sour grapes. 

[KJ_Lesnick]

tomo

Good enough?

Preferable if it had a greater wingsweep more like the AQM-60

[rickshaw]

Can anybody do a drawing of an F-104 without a horizontal stabilizer and a rhomboid wing like the AQM-60 Kingfisher?

And the advantages of such a planform would be, apart from the coolness factor?

[jcf]

Can anybody do a drawing of an F-104 without a horizontal stabilizer and a rhomboid wing like the AQM-60 Kingfisher?

And the advantages of such a planform would be, apart from the coolness factor?

It would look like an X-7, and they were super cool. 

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=369

[rallymodeller]

And here I was, led to believe that the F-104 didn't have any serious weapon-toting potential.  That link seems to blow that idea out of the water.

Not surprising, as getting close to half a century on the F-104 is still surrounded by a lot of sour grapes. 

I have a fantastic self-published book ("Ron's Book", by Col. Ron Holden, CAF (ret)). Col. Holden flew everything from CF-100s to Arguses and ended his career commanding VP870 at CFB Summerside in 1988. He also headed the Canadian Forces crash investigation team with NATO when he was a pilot with 427 Squadron at the height of Starfighter ops in the 60s. He is actually really complimentary about the Starfighter, especially about how well it flew at low level and high speed. According to him, most of the accidents with the Starfighter were due to the demanding circumstances in which they were flown in NATO service, i.e. fast and low. He compares Canada and Germany's loss record (52% of out CF-100s were lost to crashes) with Norway's (ised over open ocean, no losses in 56,000 flying hours). When you are flying by dead-reckoning navigation at Mach 0.9 at 500 feet altitude in the hilly, hazy terrain of West Germany, there is not a lot of room for error of any kind. He notes that the 1 Canadian Air Division maintained a 95% serviceability record, so it obviously wasnt mechanical...

There are two awesome stories in the book regarding his time at 427: in one instance he was "shadowing" a new pilot on a low-level training sortie. The idea was that he was to fly in loose formation with the rookie, a couple of hundred feet above and a little way back to confirm the rookie's navigation. He was paying attention to the other Starfighter, and noticed that the ground was going by a little faster than usual, the training speed being set for Mach 0.85-M0.9. He checked his airspeed and, yep, they were going M1.1 at 500' AGL through the hills of Bavaria.

The second is somewhat more exciting, and would make for an awesome diorama or shadowbox. Col. Holden was doing a training sortie himself, clipping along at low level and at speed. He looked up from his instruments to see an army helicopter (the book doesn't say whose) in his flight path. In a split second he had to decide whether to go over or under the chopper. He made the choice to go under, and just as he committed to that the helicopter disgorged a stick of paratroopers. He flew under the helicopter, right through the group of falling paratroopers at just under Mach 1...

[Jschmus]

The second is somewhat more exciting, and would make for an awesome diorama or shadowbox. Col. Holden was doing a training sortie himself, clipping along at low level and at speed. He looked up from his instruments to see an army helicopter (the book doesn't say whose) in his flight path. In a split second he had to decide whether to go over or under the chopper. He made the choice to go under, and just as he committed to that the helicopter disgorged a stick of paratroopers. He flew under the helicopter, right through the group of falling paratroopers at just under Mach 1...

[tomo pauk]

tomo

Good enough?

Preferable if it had a greater wingsweep more like the AQM-60

[KJ_Lesnick]

http://up-ship.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/x-7.gif

More like this...

[tomo pauk]

[KJ_Lesnick]

Tomo Pauk

Now that's what I call a slick looking aircraft.  What kind of tail should it have?  Cruciform or T-tail?

[tomo pauk]

T-tail, (either diamond-shaped, or regular, with similar sweep). But I'd go for tail-less; seems brutally elegant that way

[PR19_Kit]

Nonononono, he went to great lengths to take the T-tail OFF! 

[pyro-manic]

Butterfly tail, the same shape as the wings?